Nirvana
by orintheus
Summary: For cottoncandy-bingo. Wan/Raava. Whatever he feels, she does too.


The day after Wan dies, Raava feels her energy being pulled back into the human world. Of course, it is the way they have dictated, so that there may be balance between the spirits and humans. She lets herself be taken in with the current, this time her and Wan's spirit are reborn as a beautiful girl in a small Waterbender village. The girl is brown and energetic to Wan's cunning spirit. She has bright blue eyes.

In her younger years, she learns waterbending, falls in love very briefly and watches her father die to a freak accident. Wan's spirit is sympathetic to her father's death but when it comes to love, he is clueless. But he feels something bordering on empathy if not a strange emotion that tries to imitate what it means to fall in love.

_He hasn't, Raava realizes ever fallen for anyone, his noble spirit has kept him away from it. His duties after he'd plunged the world into darkness too._

She pities him, even as a spirit she had her share of crushes, loves. Once she had loved Vaatu but that was long before he had wanted full control over the world, instead of the balance they shared.

The girl doesn't find out she has the ability to bend all the elements until her late twenties. Her people are fearful of it and banish her. She spends the rest of her life half-way between the Spirit World and Human World. She dies alone. Both Raava and Wan die with her.

Wan takes her death the hardest. He was never accepted as a child but to be rejected outright is painful. To die alone, sad and cold. He thinks he will never love or feel anything again but Raava assures him he will. They go through the cycle again, Raava throws herself in but Wan is hesitant.

_You will see, she says to him as they are making their way back to the human world. I once thought nothing of your kind._

They are reborn as a spunky Earthbender, he is lively and full of an energy Wan has seen in his own friends. He too, is expelled once his powers are revealed but he doesn't let this define him. Instead he uses it as an opportunity to travel the world, showcase his skills. People are both in awe and scared of him.

He continues what Wan has set out to do and though it isn't much considering his lifetime. He makes peace with the spirits and people. For a time the world is lulled into a false sense of peace and Wan feels his spirit sync in with it. The peace manages to last for another lifetime and the Airbender has nothing to fear. She is the first to die without knowing the full extent of her powers. Raava thinks it's a bit of a waste, Wan is just happy to see someone living a normal life.

_It can't always be like that, he knows, but he just wants his reincarnations to be happy._

Their fifth reincarnation proves to be the most fruitful. Though the young Firebender is accident-prone and clumsy, the Human World now comes to expect it. This reincarnation solidifies the Avatar lineage into the world Wan has grown up in. Scholars record the strange phenomenon. They trace it back to him and to the Waterbender then to the Earthbender.

The strife between Roku and Sozin brings back uneasy emotions in Wan, remembering how his friends had so easily turned on the spirits, trying to imitate what Wan had done. It is unsettling and Raava soothes him the only way she can: she washes his old soul with light energy, just as she had done when they merged together. He lets it wash over him, the pain is still there, though muted.

The hundred year war is terrible and takes so many lives with it, Wan and Raava sleep through it. Their first thought when they wake up is how different everything feels from the Air Temple but familiar, they've already grown up in both the North and South Poles. But Aang is naïve and confused. He quickly learns to bend all the elements in the course of a year. They also feel the love between him and Katara grow.

By the time they reincarnate as Korra, they have already merged together. Both spiritually and mentally, they know that Korra and every other Avatar before her are different. She will never be a Raava or a Wan just as Aang or Kiyoshi aren't them. All she can be is herself with them by her side along with the rest of the Avatar lineage. But there is one thing neither expects Korra to do: she splits them apart. Wan understands it's for the best that they become two individuals again but it doesn't make it any less painful. All their past reincarnations choose to stay in the Spirit World. Their jobs are done, they have no more offer the world. But Raava will stay there with Korra to maintain the balance they have fought so hard to create.


End file.
